Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.17UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.17UNLIKELY
Fear
0.12UNLIKELY
Joy
0.54LIKELY
Sadness
0.56LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.51LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.54LIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.72LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.58LIKELY
Extraversion
0.13UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.8LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.53LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
*The Weight of the World*
Christmas Day 2005
Isaiah 9:2-7, Matthew 1:18-25
*/Focus:/*/ The weight of the world should be on the shoulders of Jesus Christ, not our own//./
*Introduction: Feeling the Weight of the World*
Instead of focusing on a particular facet of the Christmas story, I would like to look at a facet of the Christmas season: stress, and tie this message to Joseph’s high-pressure choice of what to do about his pregnant wife-to-be, but most of the message deals with the broad subjects of worry and control.
If you go out the doors of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City and walk five blocks down the street, to the front of the International Building at 630 Fifth Avenue, you will see a beautiful, large statue of Atlas, the strongest man in all the world.
If you looked at that statue, you would notice that Atlas is a handsomely proportioned man with enormous shoulders, rippling muscles, bulging thighs.
But he is weighted down, for he is bearing the entire weight of all the world on his shoulders.
Our society is filled to overflowing with people who feel they are bearing the entire weight of the world on their shoulders.
I think of Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former secretary-general of the United Nations.
During the Balkans war a few years ago he flew from New York to Sarajevo in good faith to try to bring some type of cease-fire or peace accord to the troubled land of Bosnia, which had become the Beirut of Europe.
He tried to bring hope to that land.
And yet, in a contemptuous rebuff of the secretary general, the leader of the Serbs refused to meet with the secretary-general and, in a sense, made Boutros Boutros-Ghali and the United Nations look foolish.
As Ghali’s motorcade drove down the streets of Sarajevo, an angry crowd jeered, disillusioned with the United Nations.
They’d become disillusioned with promises of peace.
Boutros-Ghali wanted to bring peace to that troubled spot.
The problem was he could not get cooperation.
He must have felt, as he watched the clippings of people dying in the streets, like Atlas, as if he has the whole weight of all the world on his shoulders.
Unless I miss my guess, there’s someone here this morning who feels that you have the entire weight of your world on your shoulders.
I wonder if there’s anyone here this morning who is the primary caregiver for an elderly parent or someone who is very ill, perhaps a spouse or a child or a friend or a loved one.
If you are a primary or a secondary caregiver to someone who is ill or elderly, you know that sometimes you cannot do anything right.
No matter what you do, it’s always the wrong thing at the wrong time.
And even though you try so desperately to do what’s right, you just can’t do the right thing.
Have you ever felt, in that kind of a situation, as if you had the weight of the whole world, your world, on your shoulders?
I wonder if there’s anyone here this morning who’s out of work and you desperately need employment.
It’s the twenty fifth of December, and you make the phone calls, and people say, “Can we get back to you after the first of the year?”
But you’ve got bills to pay, and you’ve got hopes and dreams and people depending on you.
And you want your life to count and you want to move on, and tomorrow is going to be the twenty sixth of December.
There’s a week ahead.
But nobody seems to want to make any commitment: “We’ll get back to you maybe, say, the middle or the end of January.”
If you’re in that situation, you might have come this morning feeling as if you’ve got the weight of the whole world on your shoulders.
There could be people here who have personal lives that are, frankly, in disarray.
They are feeling and bearing the burden of the stress and strain of life.
They’ve got decisions to make about children or decisions to make about their own life and career future or some decision that must be made.
Frankly, they don’t know what to do.
Is there anyone here who just feels in your own soul as if you’re bearing the whole weight of all the world on your shoulders?
It’s all up to you—these decisions, these Christmas preparations.
Everything is on your shoulders.
*I.
The Weight on Joseph’s Shoulders*
In Matthew 1:18-25, we learn that Joseph felt as if the whole weight of the world was on his shoulders.
Let’s read this passage together now.
If you have your Bible with you, please turn to Matthew chapter 1 and follow along as I begin reading at verse 18: “/Now this is how Jesus the Messiah was born.
His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph.
But while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
\\ Joseph, her fiancé, being a just man, decided to break the engagement quietly, so as not to disgrace her publicly.
\\ As he considered this, he fell asleep, and an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.
"Joseph, son of David," the angel said, "do not be afraid to go ahead with your marriage to Mary.
For the child within her has been conceived by the Holy Spirit.
\\ And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
\\ All of this happened to fulfill the Lord's message through his prophet: \\ "Look!
The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son, and he will be called Immanuel (meaning, God is with us)." \\ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord commanded.
He brought Mary home to be his wife, \\ but she remained a virgin until her son was born.
And Joseph named him Jesus.
“/
In order to understand what Joseph was going through, you’ve got to understand a little history of the ancient Near East.
You’ve got to understand that in that ancient Near Eastern world in which this story is set, there were three stages of marriage.
Stage one was the engagement stage.
Parents often promised their children to one another in marriage, and they were engaged often when children were born, as infants, or when they were 2 or 3 or 4 years old.
They were engaged to be married to someone, but engagement was not legally binding.
Stage two was the betrothal stage.
Betrothal occurred when that child had grown.
Often girls entered betrothal when they were 12, and boys often entered betrothal when they were 16.
Betrothal stage was the voluntary ratification of the engagement parents had entered into some years ago.
The betrothal stage was, in fact, legally binding.
You weren’t technically married, but it was a legally binding stage that lasted for one year.
In order to get out of it, one party had to issue a certificate of divorce to the other party.
During that one year in betrothal, neither member of the betrothed party were allowed to engage in any sexual relations with one another or with anyone else.
If they did, it was not only known as adultery or fornication, it was known as a severe breach of the Jewish law.
And then stage three: after the one year of betrothal was the actual marriage ceremony itself.
Mary and Joseph are in the betrothal stage of their relationship.
They have been engaged to be married, but now they’re in this one-year betrothal period, which explains why, although they’re not legally married, Joseph is resolving in his mind to issue to Mary a certificate of divorce.
Joseph’s dilemma: he feels he’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders because he knows he’s been faithful to Mary.
But his lament is that it doesn’t seem she’s been faithful to him.
Still, he’s not going to make a big deal out of it.
He resolves to divorce her quietly.
He shows his character.
He shows his maturity.
He’s not going to be immature as some of these people today who run to one of the TV commentators or to Oprah Winfrey.
He kept things quiet.
He loved Mary, and yet his heart was broken because he wanted to be her husband.
But he decided to divorce her quietly.
Then an amazing thing happened.
An angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Joseph, do not fear to take Mary for your wife.
For the child that is within her is not a child of another man.
It is, in fact, the child of the Holy Spirit.
This child that will be born should be named Jesus.
(In Hebrew, Jesus means ‘Jehovah is salvation.’)
You shall call his name Jesus for he will save the people from their sins.”
You put yourself under the weight of that.
This may have been a young man, maybe as young as 16 or 17 or 18.
You just try putting yourself under the weight of a promise like that.
It weighs you down.
But the miracle of the story is that Joseph—although he must have wondered, /What will they think of me?
What will they think of Mary?
What will they think of us?
What can it mean that our son is going to be the savior of the world and forgive people from their sins?/—he did as the angel of the Lord commanded.
He took Mary as his wife but knew her not until she gave birth to the child.
And they called the child’s name Jesus.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9